Comic for Thursday, February 9th, 2006

Posted: 7:35 am, Thursday, February 9th

Two things about this strip - that's a Diabolical Hot Dog Ron is wearing there. The other is that I painstakingly drew rough versions of about a dozen CDs in that jukebox, and they all came out completely indiscernable, or I put Pete smack in front of them. That top one is definitely supposed to be Vitalogy, and I think the next one down is Siamese Dream. I have no recollection of what the bottom one is supposed to be. I drew this strip a while ago, right after this week of strips, but held off running it for pacing purposes.

Not a lot today (I evidently lied about having a lot left over at the end of yesterday's blog). Sports Guy's intern had this article from the UConn student paper that reviewed a Bob Saget performance. I'm pretty sure most of you readers, being of above-average intelligence and also looks, know that Bob Saget is actually quite a foul-mouthed, adult-oriented comic when he's not on Full House or Videos of a Dude Getting Hit in the Nuts, but this article tackles it like it's a revelation. I'm mostly linking it because of the Bob Saget is God link from last week, but make sure to skip to the bottom of the article. For some reason, the Daily Campus (great name, squad) refers to the students not as freshmen or sophomores or whatever, but as Nth-semester students. What are they, newborns? "A sixth-semester student"? Geez. I can barely remember how old I am these days - there's no way I could ever keep track of what semester of a student I was.

The one thing I was holding onto at the end of yesterday's blog is this week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback (although he seems to have done a Wednesday edition, also). It is, as always, astoundingly long, and I'm going to pull out a few highlights that are just really good examples of why this column's a must-read this year (now that the year is over - I'm on top of everything, as always).

Here's the first observation of TMQ:

More Proof of the Decline of Western Civilization: The first State of the Union address, delivered by George Washington in 1790, was 1,087 words long and contained this magnificent passage: "Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one, in which the measures of government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the community, as in ours, it is proportionately essential. To the security of a free Constitution it contributes in various ways: By convincing those who are entrusted with the public administration, that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people: And by teaching the people themselves to know, and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burdens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience, and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last, and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws." Last week's State of the Union address was 5,432 words long and contained such passages as, "We'll fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips" and "Tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, assweenie that painted this abomination.

Then we've got this, about designer jeans that Grafe no doubt is about to run out and buy:

Imagine Trying to Explain This to Someone in Bangladesh :The latest Abercrombie & Fitch catalog sells "premium destroyed" jeans for $198 a pair. The pants, which appear to have been found at the bottom of a mine shaft, offer "handcrafted abrasion details" and "one-of-a-kind destroyed elements on every pair." I know ugly pants are trendy, and I'll skip the obvious comment about a society so lazy we hire someone to wear out our jeans for us. (Guess I didn't skip that obvious comment). Let's hone in on the obscenity of spending $198 on worn-out jeans merely because the purchase confers transitory, shallow status. If you've got $198 to spare, spending that sum on this self-indulgent vanity item should make you feel awful about yourself -- it proves you are so insecure and weak-willed, a cynical marketing conglomerate can trick you into wasting your money. Whereas you could give the same amount to the Global AIDS Fund and feel really good about yourself. In the corporate suites of Abercrombie & Fitch, they are laughing out loud at their own customers for being so unbelievably stupid as to pay $198 for a product that's advertised as in poor condition. At the A&F website, be sure to click on the "Diversity and Inclusion" tab, a masterpiece of hot-air corporate gibberish. It should say, "Unless you're well-to-do, weak-willed and gullible, we don't want to include you."

Then there's this brilliance on Intelligent Design.

No Higher Power Is Guiding "Intelligent Design" Politics : Yours truly thinks the "intelligent design" idea is being given the short shrift by the mainstream media. Yes, some intelligent design advocates want to use I.D. as a Trojan horse to put religious doctrine into public schools - forbidden by the First Amendment, and wisely so in the opinion of this churchgoer. And some intelligent design advocates believe young Earth creationism, a nutty idea for which there isn't one iota of scientific evidence. But as they mock the notion of intelligent design, the mainstream media are systematically avoiding a substantial question mark in evolutionary theory: it does not explain the origin of life. That organisms evolve in response to changes in their environment is well-established - anyone who doubts this doesn't know what he or she is talking about. But why are there living things in the first place? Darwin said he had no idea, and to this day science has little beyond wild guesses about the origin of life. Maybe life had a natural origin that one day will be discovered. Until such time, higher powers or the divine cannot be ruled out. Exactly because I think intelligent design is a more important concept than the mainstream media will admit, I really wish right-wing screwballs would stop advocating I.D. - they're giving the idea a bad name! First, it's common to hear them say evolution can be disregarded because it's "just a theory."

This is ill-informed. In everyday usage, "theory" can mean a conjectural or unlikely claim. ("See, I have this theory why Maria Sharapova would go out with me.") In science, a theory is an idea that has well-accepted supporting principles, has been tested successfully and that no one has falsified; in science the word theory conveys high standing. For instance, first relativity was an analytical idea, then a hypothesis, then after many years of testing was acknowledged as a theory. When in 1996 Pope John Paul II called Darwinianism "more than a hypothesis," he was choosing words precisely. Many on today's anti-science right appear ignorant of such basic precepts as the definition of the word theory.

The screwball fringe keeps proposing I.D.-related legislation that shows it doesn't even understand the limits of evolutionary theory. Two years ago some science illiterates in Cobb County, Ga., got the local Board of Education to mandate stickers on biology textbooks reading, "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things." Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of living things. The core quandary of Darwinian logic is that we can imagine how living things evolve but cannot imagine how they came into existence in the first place. Now a know-nothing Utah state representative has proposed this bill that "requires the State Board of Education to establish curriculum requirements and policies that stress that not all scientists agree on which theory regarding the origins of life … is correct." Hey, Utah state legislature, there are no theories on the origin of life. A few biologists have made wild guesses involving RNA, clay or hot ocean vents, but no scientist has offered anything nothing remotely near the level of a testable theory. (The details on that point) Given the presence of life is so mysterious, a creator God may be why we are here. But please, science illiterates, stop attempting to enact rules about intelligent design; you are ruining the idea.

Also, the sports analysis is top-notch. Sorry to have ganked such large chunks of today's blog, but the man makes some phenomenal points, I think. Oh, speaking of football, yesterday's Penny-Arcade was great. I forgot those two live up near Seattle. Yesterday's strip was a non-sports fan's experience of living in a Super Bowl town.

Evidently, a pigeon in Milan crapped on Katie Couric yesterday. This should come as no surprise. I recall more pigeons in San Marco in Venice, but there are a ton of freaking pigeons in Milan.

Alright, that's actually all I've got today. I'll be around, I'm sure.

bullfrog

Perhaps it is because I hate the filthy animals, but I never could understand why seemingly intelegent tourists (read: anyone tourist other than an American tourist) would pay money to feed a bunch of overstuffed flying rats. Minutes after shelling out for their five euro bag of seed you'd find these people covered, Hitchcock like, in a mass of fluttering bird wings. Then their pissed when they get crapped on? Uh...duh.

With great glee, I'm informing all you loyal 5 bucks readers that ND Finally WON LAST NIGHT. by 27 points!!! Okay, it was over Rutgers, but...hey, we won. take it where you can get it. more shocking than the win was that our Big men actually played, scored, rebounded, defended. don't know what Brey said, but maybe he's not the shit coach Reggie Ho seems to believe he is.

I actually bought a bag of seed in Venice, but it was to stage a photo. The first photo taken by the SpiceCam, in fact. To my defense, it was only 1000 lira (about seventy cents), and the craptitude of the idea became so evident so quickly that I just threw the seed as far away from me as I could and ran.

It was a terrible photograph.

I had to look into the abercrombie jeans just to make sure my anger was justified.

Totally unnatural wear, unnatural color, and throwing some paint on a pair of jeans that makes it seem like you might be some sort of artist or house painter that legitimately only has one pair of jeans so that they do in fact get worn down into denim rags is total bullshit.

I totally remember that photo. I'm sorry babe, I guess I spoke too soon. Actually I like that picture. I do believe Tree was the author of that one, no?

Were you crapped on?

No offense taken, babe, it doesn't exactly rank in the top ten of good ideas I've ever had. I don't actually know if I've had enough good ideas in my lifetime to actually complete a top ten list, now that I think about it.

And Grafe, that is a small price to pay for casual luxury. Casual luxury? Wtf? Wouldn't casual luxury be something like sweatpants?

Oh, btw: If you want a truly disturbing experience (and who among us does not?) the New Abercrombie and Fitch on 5th Avenue (circa 55th I think) is a multi-sensory overload of perfume, club lighting, and blasting music. Not only that, those jeans you mentioned are located behind a glass display case. One must request them from a store clerk in order to try them on. Amazing!

For those interested, there was an article in the times about that store a few weeks ago.

For those interested, i AM too lazy too look the link up for you.

Oh, btw: If you want a truly disturbing experience (and who among us does not?) the New Abercrombie and Fitch on 5th Avenue (circa 55th I think) is a multi-sensory overload of perfume, club lighting, and blasting music. Not only that, those jeans you mentioned are located behind a glass display case. One must request them from a store clerk in order to try them on. Amazing!

Beating Rutgers will never qualify any coach of anyone's belief that they are a "shit coach." It was Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Not an actual basketball team.

I was just asked by someone at the office if there was a way to get a document to fit on one page instead of just going onto two.

I don't know, dumbass, maybe if you take out all the extra spaces you have for no reason?

So, I was watching the Today show yesterday and she didn't get crapped on. I know this because I was hoping it would happen - especially when she deliberately put a handful of seeds on her head. I am sure the designer that lent her that hideous jacket was also thrilled to see that footage.

OK....I did not buy any food to feed the pigeons, but did manage to have one crap on my head when I was in Italy. So, yeah, spectacular experience.

And don't let Grafe fool you, he already ran out and bought those jeans....I saw them in his laundry pile the other day. He claimed to go to the mall for the first time in years for innocent reasons a few weeks ago. Now we find out the truth.

And to further add to the preposterousness....aren't most of the people who shop at Abercrombie, teenagers? Therefore, the people shelling out the money for these absurd jeans are probably parents. Stupidity breeds stupidity.

Anyone else think this is made up?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/09/bush.te rror/index.html

Yep.